Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Hey lovelies! It gives me
great pleasure today to host J. Lynn Rowan and her new book, “He Takes the Cake”! For other stops on her Goddess Fish
Promotions Book Tour, please click on the banner above or any of the images in
this post.

Be sure to make it to the end
of this post to enter to win a $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble Gift Card!! Also, come back daily to interact with J.
Lynn and to increase your chances of winning!

Thanks for stopping
by! Wishing you lots of luck in this
fabulous giveaway!

He Takes the Cake

by J. Lynn Rowan

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GENRE: Contemporary Romance

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BLURB:

Life
is good for Tess Gardiner: Her Savannah, Georgia, bakery and cafe is thriving.
She’s earned Master Pastry Chef status from the American Culinary Federation.
And she’s attending a regional culinary convention in Charleston, where she’s
been invited to sit on a small business panel discussion. The opportunity to
tout her success will, hopefully, lead to bigger and better things in her
professional life. As for her personal life? The relative contentedness she’s
enjoyed for years receives a sudden jolt when she comes face to face with Tyler
Brinks, the ex-boyfriend she summarily dismissed from her life eight years ago.

Tyler’s
success as a highly-trained chef has launched him into the stratosphere. He
already owns one ridiculously successful restaurant, and he’s aggressively
working on plans for a second. But he’s never quite gotten over Tess, and he’s
never really been sure what actually went wrong between them. So when a pastry
and baking competition is announced for the week following the culinary convention
in Charleston, Ty jumps at the chance to tempt Tess with the challenge of being
his partner, giving him the perfect opportunity to remind her how good they
once were together.

As
the competition heats up in the kitchen, it soon becomes clear to Tess that Ty
has more than cream puffs and cupcakes on his mind. And she can’t deny that her
feelings for Ty never truly cooled, but have been simmering all these years,
despite the way their relationship ended. Now Ty’s attention has her
wondering—is this just the path to final closure? Or could this be a second
chance at true love?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

EXCERPT TWO:

If
Ty’s thinking about the same incidents that lead to our breakup, he doesn’t let
on. “Only about a year or so. It . . . wasn’t what I thought it would be.”

“I
see.” Though I don’t, especially given his own slight stumble for words.
“Where’d you go in the interim?”

He
relaxes a bit and takes a sip of espresso. “New York for a little while,
working as a sous chef in a Midtown restaurant. That let me save up for Le
Cordon Bleu.”

His
dream.

I
smile, sincerely happy he’d made it come true. “Were you able to go to Paris?”

“No,”
he says with a short laugh. “But Ottawa was close enough. My mom wanted me to
try and get into the program in Atlanta, but I wanted the international
experience. So Canada it was.”

I
make a noncommittal sound and lift my cup again. “Then you settled on
Charleston to open your first restaurant.”

“Well,
it wasn’t a direct route from getting my Grand Diploma to opening On the
Brink.”

“Nice
name, by the way,” I quip, arching a brow at him.

He
leans forward. “Says the woman who named her own business after herself.”

I
give into the impulse to stick my tongue out at him. “At least mine rhymes. And
we’re not talking about me.”

“Not
yet, anyway.”

“But
you’re opening a place in Hilton Head. Does that mean you’re moving there,
too?”

Ty
shrugs. “I’ll probably have to do a little back and forth for a while. Can’t
exactly be the head chef at two restaurants at the same time.”

There’s
the opening I need to hint at the topic I’m really curious about. “Won’t the
back and forth thing make it hard for . . . your girlfriend?”

For
a moment, he freezes, recognizing by my tone that I’m fishing for information.
“I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Really?”
I force nonchalant surprise, if that’s even a thing, into my voice. “Guy like
you, I’d think you’d have women falling all over themselves to be with you.”

“What’s
that supposed to mean?” he asks, brows lowering and a look of hurt
defensiveness playing in his eyes.

I
wasn’t expecting that sort of reaction from him. Again, I fumble for words.
“Smart, successful, funny, sexy—”

My
hand flies up to cover my mouth, but it’s too late. Ty stares at me for a few
seconds before he busts out laughing.

“I
didn’t mean that I think you’re sexy,” I insist, dropping my hand.

His
laughter subsides to internal chuckles. “It’s okay, Tess. I know I’m
irresistible, even to you.”

“That’s
not—”

“For
the record, I still think the same of you.” He sounds like he’s teasing, but a
flash of something serious passes between us as his gaze softens.

My
retort dies in my throat, coming out as a choked snort instead.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AUTHOR BIO:

J. Lynn Rowan started writing stories as a
small child, usually starring her favorite cartoon characters. Most of her work
through middle and high school was filled with typical teenage angst and
melodrama, and usually mirrored the books she loved to read. But eventually she
found her own author’s voice and decided to seriously pursue a writing career.

Historical
fiction remains J. Lynn’s “first love”, but she has enjoyed the journey to
becoming an author of romance and chick lit. She is a member of Romance Writers
of America, the Central New York Romance Writers, and the Historical Novel
Society. She is also a teacher who tries to instill a love of learning,
reading, and writing in her students.

When
she’s not writing, J. Lynn enjoys travelling, gardening poorly but
enthusiastically, studying various topics in American history for her own
expertise, and channeling Julia Child every time she steps into the kitchen.

A
native of Oswego, NY, she now lives in Charlotte, NC, with her own Romantic
Hero of a husband and their little rainbow, affectionately known as Babycakes.

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This contest is sponsored
by a third party. Fabulous and Brunette is a registered host of Goddess Fish
Promotions. Prizes are given away by the
sponsors and not Fabulous and Brunette. The featured author and Goddess Fish
Promotions are solely responsible for the giveaway prize.